6 Healthy Habits To Teach Kids Who Worry Too Much

One of my favorite quotes is by Marjorie Hinckley, the author of the book Small and Simple Things. In it she says, "The trick is to enjoy life. Don't wish away your days waiting for better ones ahead."

It seems like an easy principle to live by, but in reality many of us live our days fighting the Worry Monster -- that constant internal voice that tells us we aren't doing enough, succeeding enough, gaining enough, earning enough. For our kids, this trickles down into fears like "I won't be able to pass my spelling test," "I won't do well in soccer practice" or "I'm not smart enough or cool enough for my friends. "

So how do we instill tools within our children to help them combat these universal and common anxious feelings? How can our children learn to live in the present rather than worry about the future that has yet to come? Encourage these six simple, practical and healthy habits for daily living:

1. Make a worry list.
Have your child make a list of all his or her worries and fears, both small and large. Just the act of recognizing and writing down worries can sometimes make the scary emotions seem less intimidating for your child. This allows you to identify which worries and fears you want to work on with your child, tackling one by one together.

2. Practice thinking strategies.
Help your children convert their worries into reassurances by teaching them new thinking strategies. For example, if their consistent worry is "I am afraid my mom won't pick me up from school," have them replace it with "I know my mom is coming for me because she ALWAYS does." Together, you can say each worry and fear and come up with new sentences to combat the old. Practice these with your kids until they become habitual replacements for the old, incessant worries. This is a key skill for building resilience.

3. Don't skimp on sleep.
Make sure your child gets enough sleep on a regular basis. Well-rested equals well-equipped mentally and physically to deal with minor daily stresses. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that 3- to 5-year-olds get 11-13 hours a night, 5- to 12-year-olds get 10-11 hours per night, and teens get 9.25 hours per night (although some do fine with 8.5 hours).

4. Make good nutrition a priority.
Make sure your child gets a steady dose of protein throughout the day. Many kids experience low blood sugar, also known as hypoglycemia. Low blood sugar usually occurs a few hours after breakfast and it looks and feels a lot like anxiety: they feel dizzy, start sweating, feel weak, and their heart beats really fast. Staying away from caffeine and energy drinks is also recommended as they mimic the effects of adrenaline and cause people to feel anxious.

5. Get some exercise.
Exercise burns adrenaline. If it's not already a part of your child's daily routine, add daily exercise to your child's plan, and let him know that not only is it good for his body, but it will help keep the Worry Monster away. Exercise can include any activities that your child enjoys such as swimming, shooting baskets, hiking, soccer, dodge ball, tennis, martial arts, jumping rope, rock climbing, bicycling, dancing, gymnastics or yoga. Anything that increases your child's heart rate will help fight the Worry Monster.

6. Don't underestimate distraction.
Arm your children with a little healthy distraction. Let them pick a favorite activity such as ten minutes on the computer playing a brain game, time out for reading a favorite book, watching a half hour television show or bike riding around the block -- and allow them to do that activity whenever a worry attack comes on. This allows them to combat worry with pleasure and takes their mind off the often paralyzing thoughts and feelings brought on by the Worry Monster. Before you and they know it, they have been distracted from their worries.

All of us experience worry and anxiety, but Worry Warriors know that the trick is to understand how the Worry Monster works, be prepared for his sneaky ways, tackle him head-on and not leave him lurking silently in the closet. We can arm our children to battle their anxious thoughts and engage in life -- and we can do the same. By maintaining these six healthy habits, your family can put their worries aside and experience life to the fullest in 2014.

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15 Children's Health Studies From 2013 All Parents Should Read

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If there's one thing that researchers have confirmed in recent years, it's that breastfeeding has benefits. And several 2013 studies uncovered even more evidence supporting that fact: One found that breastfeeding longer may help boost babies' intelligence, perhaps because breast milk contains DHA, which has been linked to cognitive development. Another suggested that breastfeeding may be protective against ADHD -- although it did not establish cause and effect (so it might be that other aspects of children's upbringing, for example, or genetics played a role).

A major American Academy of Pediatrics report issued this year concluded that the majority of medications are safe for nursing mothers, despite the fact that many women are counseled to discontinue their use. Some medications do transfer to breast milk, but the amounts tend to be small, while others do not transfer at all. The difficulty, however, is knowing which drugs are safe and which are not. "There are traditional medications, like aspirin, that have been around for years and that we have a lot of information about, we're secure in our knowledge," one doctor told HuffPost. "But there are new drugs coming out all the time, including new antidepressants and antipsychotics, and we know less about them."

Buying and sharing breast milk online has become increasingly popular, but it is not a particularly safe practice, according to data released in 2013. Researchers purchased samples from one of the most popular milk sharing websites in the U.S. and compared them to those from a milk bank (milk banks, which are regulated by the Human Milk Banking Association of North America, follow strict guidelines and pasteurize their milk). The online samples had higher levels of contamination, with 64 percent testing positive for staphylococcous, and three of the samples testing positive for salmonella. Though many parents are, understandably, eager to provide their babies breast milk and may not be able to for various reasons, there is no getting around the potential risks: "There is hardly anything that, as a buyer, you could use to determine if a given sample is safe for your baby," the study's researcher told HuffPost.

A comprehensive review conducted by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) found that the current U.S. vaccination schedule is safe, and that there is no evidence that immunizing children against polio, whooping cough, measles and other diseases leads to health issues, such as autism or asthma. While the IOM said it hopes the findings will reassure parents and health care providers that current guidelines are safe, it also called for continued monitoring, Reuters reported.

Since the advent of the "back to sleep" campaign (aimed at reducing the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), the number of babies with "positional plagiocephaly" -- medicine-speak for flat spots on their heads -- has soared. A Canada-based study found that more than 46 percent of 2- to 3-month-olds have some form of the condition (most mild). Because the researchers didn't have past figures for comparison's sake, it's entirely possible that this has long been the case, and parents and doctors are just more aware of it now; or it could be because more babies are sleeping on their backs. Whatever the reason, the good news is that flat spots tend to be totally harmless.

It's not just how much sleep kids get, but how regular it is that is important, according to a study out of the U.K. Children with consistent bedtimes scored better on reading, math and tests of spatial skills. And the effects appeared to be cumulative: Children who had inconsistent bedtimes when they were 3 (the researchers asked parents about their kids' bedtimes at ages 3, 5 and 7) scored lower at age 7. And kids who had inconsistent bedtimes at more than one of those ages showed more pronounced effects on their tests. It is not clear yet whether not having a set bedtime is simply a reflection of children living in "chaotic settings" where they were more likely to skip breakfast or have a TV in their room, the researchers wrote or whether the effect was more direct, but sleep experts say the message is clear: "I would tell you that in my estimation, the majority of parents have no idea how important sleep consistency is," one told HuffPost. "It's not because they don't care. They haven't been told."

One of the first studies to take a close look at the amount of sodium in packaged foods made for toddlers found that 70 percent of them exceeded 210 mg of sodium per serving -- the threshold researchers used to classify a food as high sodium. And some of the toddler meals had roughly half of the maximum daily recommendation. Fortunately, baby foods fared better: Almost all of the commercial foods for babies up to one year were relatively low in sodium, the researchers found.

For the first time in decades, childhood obesity rates dropped -- at least among low-income preschoolers between the ages of 2 and 4. These lower rates are, of course, good news but health experts say the overall numbers are still too high: One in 8 preschoolers in the U.S. is considered obese.

A comprehensive New York Times analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released in 2013 uncovered a significant jump in the number of children who were diagnosed with ADHD in the past decade. Up to 11 percent of school-age children have been told they have disorder, according to the Times, for reasons that are not yet understood. It could be, for example, that there is simply more awareness of ADHD or that children are being over-diagnosed. Or, perhaps, there are factors causing ADHD to be more prevalent than before.

The prevalence of parent-reported cases of autism is up from 1 in 86 in 2007 to 1 in 50 between 2011 and 2012,

Research now shows that certain seemingly harmless things can prove risky for children. One study found that televisions injure roughly one child in the U.S. every 30 minutes -- largely by falling on them. Another showed parents should be vigilant when their children are in high chairs (around 9,400 young kids in the U.S. are injured falling off high chairs each year, it concluded). Magnets also pose a risk: The number of yearly swallowing incidents jumped from roughly one child in every 200,000 in 2002 to six per 200,00 in 2010, one study showed). And amusement rides (at parks, fairs, restaurants and malls) injure more than 4,400 children yearly).

A startling study found that when school-age children are bullied by their peers, they're twice as likely to experience so-called "psychosomatic symptoms," including headaches, stomachaches, dizziness, bed wetting and sleep problems. Sometimes, parents and teachers ignore children's physical symptoms or assume they're faking a stomachache, for example, to get out of an activity. But the study emphasizes that adults should take such symptoms seriously, as they might be a sign that something else is going on.

Words matter, and so does the way they are delivered. A study concluded that harsh verbal discipline increases childrens' risk for depression and aggressive behavior (it focused on 13 and 14-year-olds) -- in much the same way that physical punishment often does. "The negative effects of verbal discipline within the two-year period of [the] study were comparable to the effects shown over the same period of time in other studies that focused on physical discipline," one of the researchers said in a statement.

Obesity rates appear to be "cresting" among adolescents and teens, a separate study found. It also concluded that middle and high school students are engaging in healthier behaviors, like eating more fruits and vegetables and fewer sweets; skipping breakfast less often and exercising more. (The study did not establish a causal relationship between these healthier behaviors and the apparent leveling off in childhood obesity rates.) The amount of time spent watching TV also decreased, however, the amount of time teens spent playing video games or chatting online remained largely the same.

The study was highly preliminary and conducted with mice, but it nonetheless generated a lot of attention for its finding that regular marijuana use during adolescence might damage brain function, putting teens at risk for psychiatric disorders down the road. The study is not the final word (indeed, a paper published in 2012 found teen marijuana use does not appear to affect brain tissue health). But as the lead researcher explained, "Over the past 20 years, there has been a major controversy about the long-term effects of marijuana, with some evidence that use in adolescence could be damaging."